Accidently Uninstalled Bluetooth Driver on Dell Laptop?

Question

Accidently Uninstalled Bluetooth Driver on Dell Laptop?

Anonymous

Hi! I think I've made a very silly mistake, these past few days my bluetooth headphones kept disconnecting and bluetooth on the actual computer (Dell Inspiron 15 3515) itself would sort of disappear, I knew it couldn't be the headphones themselves as they connected perfectly fine to my phone and beforehand also connected perfectly fine to the laptop before this. After some searching on the internet I was able to find it in hidden devices and would get the error code 45. After not really looking at what I was clicking I ended up (I'm assuming) deleting the driver entirely. Even through troubleshoot, or any other means (old reddit posts and tech forums) I've not found a solution. Now it is currently in a state where even the bluetooth symbol (?) fully doesn't appear.

For ease of reading and understanding what I've already done I'll put in bullet points what I've tried to do to fix the problem

1). Going directly to dells drivers and downloads to find simply reinstall the driver

    a). This is the name of the download that I assumed: **Realtek RTL8821CE/RTL8822CE Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Driver**. This downloads the wifi correctly but doesn't download the bluetooth driver and says that bluetooth must be enabled)

           b). From there I don't know how to enable bluetooth as I can't even find it in device manager/hidden devices in device manager

2). Restarting the computer, pressing the power button for 10 seconds and then unplugging everything

Microsoft troubleshoot also has difficulty resolving the specific problem

    a). It says that my version of windows has reached it's end of service state even though, I downloaded windows 11? so checking for        updates is made doubly difficult

4). Doing a soft reset

Doing the hardware scan and looking for a change or update

I have 0 technical knowledge whatsoever so I'm 100% positive I missed something or potentially screwed something up, any help or knowledge would be very useful! Thank you for reading this far

I am now able to find bluetooth driver via device manager but only by viewing in drivers by type

Main problem/question: How do I re-enable bluetooth and/or reinstall the bluetooth driver?

Device Info:

Dell Inspiron 15 3515

Processor AMD Ryzen 5 3500U with Radeon Vega Mobile Gfx 2.10 GHz

System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

Edition Windows 11 Home

Version 22H2

Installed on ‎4/‎1/‎2025

OS build 22621.4317

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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8 answers

Answer 1

Airbus A350 7,375 Volunteer Moderator

Hello,

Just checking in to see whether you were able to get Bluetooth working again.

If not, just let me know and then I'll give more troubleshooting steps.

Hope to hear back from you.

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Answer 2

Hello,

Please go to Device Manager and then uninstall the Bluetooth driver that you just installed.

Then, restart your PC and then install it again.

After that, go to the Start Menu and type services.msc and push enter, then look for the Bluetooth Support Service, and make sure that next to it, it says Automatic. If not, double-click the Bluetooth Support Service and then next to "Startup type", change it to Automatic and then restart your PC and see if the Bluetooth works.

Let me know how this goes.

Answer 3

Hi! Thank you for taking the time to reply and it had a lot of useful info.

Unfortunately, I'm still having the same problem, I'm upgraded to windows 11 and have downloaded the filed that you mentioned.

I'm able to find the Bluetooth driver, now in hidden devices but it's still showing the code 45 error code and also fully disappearing from quick settings and when I go to the Bluetooth tab it says it "needs to be enabled".

It worked briefly after running the install wizard for the audio but after a second or two went back to not working?

I should also mention everything else is working great! Wifi and everything other aspect has been working as it should, it's literally only thr Bluetooth that is having this issue.

Do you have any other advice?

Thank you again, I very much appreciate it :)

Answer 4

Hi,

Kayece here. I will be happy to assist you today.

Have you tried to do the system restore? If not, please try and see if you can restore the point before the issue starts.

https://support.microsoft.com/windows/system-re...

If it still has the same issue, please run an in-place upgrade for windows 11. Please follow the steps on the link below.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/for...

I hope this helps. If you need more assistance, please let me know.

Stay Safe!

Answer 5

Hello,

Please go to https://www.dell.com/support/product-details/en-us/product/inspiron-15-3515-laptop/drivers and then download the Bluetooth driver that is listed there.

Alternatively, you can go to https://dl.dell.com/FOLDER12623694M/1/Realtek-High-Definition-Audio-Driver_FVW46_WIN64_6.0.9780.1_A81.EXE?uid=&fn=Realtek-High-Definition-Audio-Driver_FVW46_WIN64_6.0.9780.1_A81.EXE for the direct download link.

Also, I recommend that you upgrade to Windows 11, 23H2 or 24H2.

To upgrade to 23H2, download the 23H2 enablement package from https://catalog.sf.dl.delivery.mp.microsoft.com/filestreamingservice/files/caa3ff4a-6420-4341-aeae-33b2d7f463be/public/windows11.0-kb5027397-x64_3a9c368e239bb928c32a790cf1663338d2cad472.msu and then launch the MSU file once it's done downloading. Then, run the update (it only takes about a few seconds), and then restart your PC when prompted.

Once your PC restarts, you should be on 23H2. 23H2 is supported until October.

To go straight to 24H2, you can use the Windows 11 Installation Assistant or Windows 11 ISO.

To use the Windows 11 Installation Assistant, download the Windows 11 Installation Assistant and then run it. You should see some prompts telling you about Windows 11 and what it'll install. Let it download and install 24H2.

To use the Windows 11 ISO, download the Windows 11 ISO, (you can find it here, scroll down to where you see ISO for Windows 11 x64 devices), mount it, and then run setup.exe (if you see a UAC prompt, push yes). Follow the prompts on-screen and then let setup.exe update and install Windows 11, 24H2.

Both of these will take a while to install. It's best to do this at night when you're not doing anything important. Just make sure to save your files before you start.

Please also note that the 24H2 ISO is a large download (over 5GB) and will take quite a bit of time to download, especially on a slow network.

Hope this helps, and if you have any questions, don't hesitate to let me know!

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Accidently Uninstalled Bluetooth Driver on Dell Laptop?

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